Tuesday, 23 February 2010

I compiled this just after Manchester United v AC Milan Champions League tie last week but as I was unable to confirm some statistics I didn't publish it.

Wayne Rooney's two goals in Manchester United's 3-2 victory against AC Milan has once again produced the obligatory love in from the nation’s finest journalistic minds. But given that both opportunities were pretty straightforward is the analysis of Rooney's role last night or in fact in the wider context really accurate.

Wayne Rooney has been a saviour to football fans of one team or another for around 10 years. As a precocious schoolboy he was viewed by Everton fans as the reason for hope in the future. Since then he has graduated to carrying the hopes of one of the world's largest clubs, Manchester United, & a whole nation. In this World Cup year those aspirations will reach its zenith. Perceived as a one man titan for both club & country, Rooney is regarded as essential to the success of United & England.

Yet beyond the hyperbole the statistics paint a different picture. Rooney has scored more than 15 league goals in a season only twice - one of which is the current campaign. His goal ratio throughout his career is a goal every 2.5 games, which is reasonable without being spectacular. While his best return in a Champions League season is 4 goals. These statistics are not particularly flattering for Rooney but where do they sit in comparison with his peers?

For an accurate comparison I have taken the six seasons that Rooney has been at United as the time frame & have looked at league performances.

Player

App

Goals

Assists

Goal Ratio

Assist Ratio

Samuel Eto'o

165

115

21

1.43

7.86

David Villa

188

119

26

1.58

7.23

Thierry Henry

155

96

43

1.61

3.60

Francesco Totti

150

90

22

1.67

6.82

Diego Forlan

193

112

20

1.72

9.65

Lionel Messi

129

70

34

1.84

3.79

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

176

92

24

1.91

7.33

Fernando Torres

181

93

15

1.95

12.07

Cristiano Ronaldo

181

92

40

1.97

4.53

Didier Drogba

156

74

36

2.11

4.33

Wayne Rooney

183

86

48

2.13

3.81

Ronaldinho

165

72

38

2.29

4.34

The data is sorted in ascending order of goal ratio. Based on this criterion Rooney only betters Ronaldinho. It’s not surprising to see the likes of Eto’o, Villa or Henry at the head of the list, but even much maligned figures like Ibrahimovic, Totti & Forlan offer better returns than Rooney.

In Rooney’s favour are the assist statistics. He is among the top three in terms of assists ratio, & in total has the most credited assists. This would point to Rooney’s role as a creative player & perhaps explains his less than stellar goal scoring record.

Comparing Champions League football is a little harder as the number of games played does vary considerably between the players. However given the importance of the competition the figures are worth examining.

Player

App

Goals

Assists

Goal Ratio

Assist Ratio

Lionel Messi

37

19

7

1.95

5.29

Didier Drogba

52

26

4

2.00

13.00

David Villa

18

8

3

2.25

6.00

Ronaldinho

40

17

8

2.35

5.00

Cristiano Ronaldo

55

22

8

2.50

6.88

Samuel Eto'o

43

17

9

2.53

4.78

Thierry Henry

49

19

7

2.58

7.00

Fernando Torres

22

8

1

2.75

22.00

Wayne Rooney

51

18

5

2.83

10.20

Francesco Totti

26

8

4

3.25

6.50

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

45

10

4

4.50

11.25

Diego Forlan

26

4

1

6.50

26.00

A couple of things are apparent straightaway from the data. The most obvious being the greater difficulty scoring goals in the Champions League as witnessed by the higher goal ratios. While the other noteworthy stat is that English based players are the most featured players in terms of appearances. From Rooney’s perspective the table does not make great reading. Both his goal scoring & assist ratio are at the lower end of table. Ifperformances in Champions League is a key criteria in judging a players exploits Rooney has some way to go to match the very best.

Obviously there are factors that the statistics do not consider. For example Diego Forlan’s appearances have been for the unfancied pair of Villarreal & Atletico Madrid, whereas Messi has played all his games for an extremely strong Barcelona side. And while mitigating factors need to be taken into account, Rooney’s statistics point to a good player not a great one.

Of all the players listed the most apt comparison is with Ronaldo given that they joined United at a similar time. Their subsequent career paths though have been divergent. Ronaldo improved year after year until he completely eclipsed the England striker. Proof of this was apparent in Sir Alex Ferguson's decision to use Rooney on the left wing to accommodate Ronaldo in the most important fixtures. And in response Ronaldo delivered some stunning performances. Over the last three seasons the Portuguese forward scored 66 goals & created a further 27. Rooney’s contribution was 38 goals & 31 assists, though he also appeared in nine less games. In their time together at United Rooney only outscored Ronaldo in the first two seasons & this is despite playing the majority of matches as the centre forward.

Overshadowed in their time together at United, Ronaldo’s departure in the summer signalled a crucial period in Rooney's career. He knew he had to deliver results for himself & his team. And granted the central role both on the pitch & in general, Rooney has produced his best season to date. His Premier League goal scoring record this season is a goal every 1.2 games. And the change of emphasis in Rooney’s positioning has resulted in all his goals being scored inside the box. However at the same time Rooney’s creative input has declined with only 3 assists compared with an average of 9 per season.

This performance highlights a couple of things. Firstly it has seen the reinvention of Rooney as a goal scorer rather than an attacking player in the manner of a Ronaldinho or Messi. And more importantly it is the first season that Rooney can justifiably claim his form is that of the world’s elite. So far throughout his career we've seen flashes of brilliance but no sustained performance over a whole season. And that is the crux of the debate. Great players perform at the very highest standards continually. For confirmation of this Rooney simply had to look across the pitch on Wednesday night to see a former great in action in the form of Ronaldinho.

One further lesson that Rooney would do well to heed is that epitomised by David Beckham. In the run up to major championships Beckham has often been built up to exorbitant heights by pundits & fans alike. The reality is that he (Beckham) is & always has been a very good player, rather than a great one. Thus while the hype can become all consuming it is performances on the pitch that matter. In this regard Rooney has elevated his play this season beginning the transition to great player - he’s just not there yet.

5 comments:

Great analysis of statistics but can you go a little bit deeper? I have vivid memories of all the chances missed by Rooney having been set up by CRON perhaps you can analyse that as they drag down CRON's assist stats.

This takes into account assist ratios so it's their average contribution. for example eto'o assists in one every 7.86 games (1/7.86 = 0.127) This figure taken away from the goal ratio gives the final, more fairer assessment, of he contributes to a goal every 1.3 games.

Anyway looking at stats and figures only paints half of the picture, you could conversly look at the number of 'winning goals' or 'points won through their goals' and get a completly set of different results. I think for last season berbatov actually gained more 'points' for united than ronaldo did, but that doesn't make him better overall.

To judge rooney on the past 6 seasons is a bit unfair too as even sir alex has said he's been shoe-horned to accomodate ronaldo / the team at times with this season being the first proper run he's had.

I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone in the world (barring roma fans) who'd take totti over rooney, ronaldo, torres etc. and yet he appears higher in the list than all of these.

As pointed out the other day rooney is now level on goals as ronaldo was at the same stage when he scored 42 goals in all competitions, which is a remarkable feat by any accounts.

Anyway, if anything, all this proves really is there's very little between all of these players in the end.

Seems like you got the Spanish league assists data from ESPN Soccernet. They don't have assists data for the Spanish league from before the 2005-2006 season. And for some players (David Villa), not even from 2005-2006. So for Villa, the assists you have calculated is only from 3 seasons and for Samuel Eto'o, Ronaldinho and most other Spanish league players, 4 seasons.While for Rooney and other EPL players, it's from over 6 seasons.

The statistics do not give the whole picture e.g Villa topped an assists chart only when he played as a SS and had Fernando Morientes (a former UEFA forward of the year) on his team, not when playing as a CF ,which I assume would be harder, like Thierry Henry did. But Villa's assists reduced when Morientes left. Rooney also had more assists when C. Ronaldo was on his team.

Generally speaking, it's hard to have many assists without having other good strikers on the team and also to score goals without having a good playmaker.Players who play as a lone striker also generally have more goals.

Thanks for the correction. Yes it was ESPN Soccernet that was my primary source of info. I did think it was a bit suspicious that the likes of Villa, Eto'o etc had no assists early on but I was unable to find any other source to counter the stats ESPN had.

On the statistics they do not, as everyone knows, provide a complete picture. There are so many variables that it's not simply a case of comparing like for like. However by using the broadest possible data I think it provides plenty of information from which to draw certain conclusions. The main point of the article was to show that despite all the attention surrounding Rooney his performances are short of the elite level. I wanted to bring a sense of perspective to the debate about Rooney & show that there are players out there like Villa, Totti that have better records than England's latest world beater.

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